You can start picking your 30-man squad immediately with a $10 million salary cap, create leagues for you and your mates, and start planning your Fantasy Elite draft for the ultimate test of talent-spotting.

There's a $25,000 cash prize for the overall winner of Fantasy Classic, part of a prize pool in excess of $200,000. There are also AFL Live subscriptions, Sherrin footballs and AFL Shop vouchers for weekly high-scorers.

Fantasy Match Day is back for 2016 with $1000 cash on offer for the highest scorer of every round, including the finals.

It also pays to set up a league and invite your friends before the end of February. The first 5000 coaches to do so will get an extended AFL Live pass and one lucky league creator will get to meet and have their photo taken with the AFL captains on the official Captains' Day.

It's been a long off-season, and we've already had the bombshell of Essendon players being suspended, not to mention Jarryd Roughead's knee injury which will keep one of Fantasy's top forwards out for half the year.

The Bombers' top-up players will be added to the Fantasy selection pool when their full list is finalised.

There's a host of tweaks to Fantasy that will help you get the most out of your team. You can drag and drop players into your squad and move them around the field.

There's also a new stats archive that will give you in-depth Fantasy numbers from the past two seasons to help pick the best talent available.

In the meantime, there's only a couple of weeks until the NAB Challenge begins – so start picking your team now, and be part of all the fun with AFL Fantasy.

The pre-season AFL Record is the ultimate guide to a big season ahead and a must-have companion for those playing AFL Fantasy. The Traders have picked the best players in each position and have rated the top five Fantasy players to watch at each club. On sale Thursday (February 4) in Victoria and from February 8 in all other states and territories for $9.95. Look for it in newsagents and book stores.